Black women and mental health

One in four people living in the UK will be diagnosed with a mental health illness in their lifetime, according to figures by leading mental health charity MIND. In the black community mental health is a taboo subject. It’s not widely spoken about within the community or in mainstream media. When mental health in the black community is spoken about in the media, black men are usually at the forefront of the black mental health story and black women are normally forgotten and that has led to many suffering in silence. I wanted this documentary to give a voice to black women suffering with mental health illnesses. Through the process of making this documentary, I discovered that black women are more likely to be given drugs as treatment instead of alternative therapies. I wanted to explore that further and find out why. This documentary is about the black mental health story, but I want it to be a conversation starter because mental health has a impact on everyone and speaking about it needs to become a normality.

A new class of experimental drugs reduces hot flushes in menopausal women by almost three-quarters in just three days. The treatment, tested by scientists at Imperial College London, also reduces the severity …